1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to a method and system for analyzing an image generated by at least one camera, wherein the at least one image is generated by the camera capturing at least one print media object.
2. Background Information
In the prior art there are known applications which augment print media objects, such as conventional books, with virtual objects using the so called Augmented Reality (AR) technology: H.K.U.I.P. Mark Billinghurst, The Magic Book: A transitional AR interface, Computers and Graphics, 25(5), 2001, pages 745-753 and John McKenzie and Doreen Darnell, The eyeMagic Book—A Report into Augmented Reality Storytelling in the Context of a Children's Workshop, 2003.
In such application, a camera coupled to a computer takes a picture of a book read by a person, wherein the book is displayed on a display screen and virtual objects may be displayed in addition to the image of the real world containing the book, so that the book displayed on the display screen is augmented with virtual objects of any kind on a display screen. In such application, in order to augment the image with virtual objects, there is the need for the computer system to identify the real object, such as a respective page of the book, and its position and orientation with respect to the camera in order to correctly display the virtual object in the image taken by the camera.
Generally, each double page, i.e. the pages of the book which are simultaneously visible when reading the book, is represented by a respective data set stored in the computer system. When the book is positioned with an opened double page on a table, for example, and the camera is taking an image of the book, the image of the camera is capturing the double page opened in front of the camera. For identifying a particular double page of the book in order to correctly display the virtual object in the image of that double page, the computer system is required to compare one or more features of the image taken by the camera with all of the data sets stored in the computer system for the book, which process is rather time consuming and requires large processing performance of the computer system.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method and a system for analyzing an image of a real object generated by at least one camera which may be performed with reduced processing requirements and/or at a higher processing speed.